Erika and Emma...

They were under an umbrella in the middle of the day so that created soft lighting over them, but the background is very contraty and distracting. I kind of like this pose of them together like this so I wanted a critique on the composition.

what aperture were you using? that might have affect the look of the background. If you used something around 2.8 on a 150mm telephoto, it would be completely blurred. That should help to do that, either a smaller aperture or a longer focal length. Also, an lense's 'bokeh' (the quality of the out-of-focus parts of an image. if a lens has good bokeh, the out of focus highlights, like light coming through trees, will be a blurry ball, but a lens with not so good bokeh will have more distinct circles where the highlights are) will greatly affect the image. as for the subject, i think it's great. the composition on this is nice, the contrast is good (might be a little too much in some areas, i would like to see more of the mom's (?) eyes.), and the toning is nice. this shot could also work well with a looser crop (not to say that it doesnt the way it is). nice shot